


Halpert Family Tree

by Emilys_List



Series: The 'Jim is Jewish?' Series [1]
Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Family, Gen, family tree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-16
Updated: 2007-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilys_List/pseuds/Emilys_List
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Life isn’t about endings… it’s a series of moments.” Tim Canterbury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halpert Family Tree

**Author's Note:**

> According to Wikipedia (ha), Halpert is a variation of the Jewish surname Heilprin. Did you know this? I did not – and this information (along with a curiousity about Larissa Halpert) prompted Jim's family tree.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any characters who you recognize.

**David Halpert  
**  
"I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am.”  
Michel Foucalt

Dave likes to think that his upbringing mirrored that of Alvy Singer. His childhood home was not under a roller coaster, but he was a Brooklyn boy, born and bred. At that point, his parents were dabbling in Conservative Judaism, and hiding it from their relatives – that is, whoever was left. A scary framed picture of a large group of unsmiling relatives hung in the dining room. Out of that group, only twelve remained, sprinkled through the United States and Israel. Dave hated that picture. He did not have the vocabulary to express his complex, ever-unfolding feelings about what it felt like to be attached to loss, while not really losing anything. Phantom loss. He broke the picture on purpose once and he watched his mother sob over the broken glass.

Unbeknownst to his family, he started taking Philosophy classes at Columbia. He liked the thoughts that managed to course through his body as he considered life through a different lens. By the time he applied to grad school at Penn State, he considered himself a continental philosopher in the tradition of Michel Foucalt. Pompous, of course, but that was something he did not know until later. His neighbor Larissa would come over sometimes, and he liked her, maybe. She was getting her graduate degree in Design within the Theatre school. She was kind of loud, but incredibly funny.

His life unfolded quickly. One day he woke up as Professor Halpert, the next day as Larissa’s husband, then as Ben’s dad, Tate’s dad, Jim’s dad. He was not unhappy; he was content to live his life. Sometimes he unintentionally flirted with the undergrads, their eyes wide and their minds attune to the good questions. But he goes home to his wife, his house, his family, and smiles at what has bloomed from under an amusement park ride.

**Larissa Katrakis-Halpert  
**  
“In the theatre the audience want to be surprised - but by things that they expect.”  
Tristan Bernard

Some people she has met love theatre because it is a place to escape. She would have to admit that she likes lighting a show, or playing Medea, or creating the backdrop of Our Town – but she is not someone who needs to bury herself. She likes to create and to entertain. When she was in college and doing her graduate work, she had thought perhaps that she would move to Manhattan, live in a tiny studio, and keep outrageous hours.

She liked David because had kind eyes and a good sense of humor. They seemed like a good fit. Otherwise, she cannot be specific about why she married him, but to her that feels okay. No life in Manhattan, though, and that is okay too. In their first house in Ithaca, she planted yellow roses, and often cut them from the bush for placement in the living room. That is, of course, until Ben started eating rose petals. Tate and Jim came next in two-year intervals, and she liked her menagerie. She had a grand vision, a respect for her husband’s family, in giving her children Hebrew middle names. Somehow, keeping toddlers amused in temple on the High Holy Days became a war she was unwilling to fight; Christmas became easier, as did eating bagels on Sunday morning. Life settled in. When Dave had faculty meetings and lectures, the four of them would have fast food and go to the drive-in. She knew how to made her kids laugh, which became one of her greatest accomplishments.

Eventually, when they moved to Scranton, she taught theatre at the public high school, and loved indulging her histrionic students. She impressed parents and other teachers with the skill in which she produced her plays. You should be doing this professionally! She would bite her lip, nod, and smile, because she did not know what to say.

**Benjamin Baruch Halpert  
**  
“The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.”  
Walt Whitman

He was born on an excruciatingly cold morning in upstate New York – or so he is told. As the oldest, he gets to experience the lovely environs of Ithaca, Syracuse and Scranton, and could not be more bored by it all. Poor Jim, though, his whole life was spent in the Middle-of-Fucking-Nowhere, PA. He always wondered what it would be like to live in New York City. Both of his parents had grown up there, but not when it was chic. Ben would dream about attending NYU, getting a job on Wall Street, and spending his weekends exploring the museums of the Upper West Side. He did not really know what that meant, having only been to New York a few times during his childhood, but he had pieced together this life through movies and television. His skin itched with how bad he wanted to get away.

When he does graduate from high school, he does go to NYU but does manage the even better route of Columbia University; thank god for legacy. He likes school very much, always has, and unfortunately finds himself with a very serious bout of mono during his first semester of sophomore year. He comes back to Scranton, crossing days off violently on his calendar until he is well again. His mother watches old movies with him and assigns him fake essays to write (“Describe and analyze the differences between As the Word Turns and All My Children”). He realizes for the first time in his life that he likes her very much, and makes her promise to visit him in New York from time to time.

When he graduates, he moves to San Francisco for work and people call him Benjamin. Jim calls, asking for advice about his string of college girlfriends and Ben just does not know what to say. Tate and Jim come to visit in the summer, and he takes them around. He finds it strange to have adult siblings, and that there is no hair pulling or punching (Well, not much). Tate takes a great picture of Ben and Jim, sending them each a copy. Ben knows for a fact that they both have the picture framed on their desks. Looking at that picture takes him across the country, and sometimes, he does not mind it.

 

**Tate Tova Halpert  
**  
“Pears can just fuck off too.”  
Eddie Izzard

She is ashamed to be so stereotypical, but she is the model of a middle child. The peacemaker. The one who grabs her brothers and heads for the tree house when their parents fight. The protector. She does not mean to be this, but it is what it is.

Tate gets her period at 10 years old, a feat her mother tells her is impossible, since women in her family do not menstruate until much later. She rolls her eyes; it was so not the point. Larissa hands over a portion of her stash, and Tate feels strange, in addition to being incredibly uncomfortable with the new pains aching in her body. Her brothers tease her. Since she likes a good joke, she wears red for the rest of the week and explains in graphic detail what is happening to anyone who inquires. What? That is what one deserves for being nosy.

Her Bat Mitzvah theme was “Totally Tate.” Crimped hair and puff-painted shirts ran amuck while her brothers hid from the hoards of 13-year-olds doing the Electric Slide. For the life of her, she cannot remember what passage she read when she was called to the Torah.

Tate and Nate. High school sweethearts. Disgusting but true. When her parents went out of town during the summer before college, they had decided August 10th would be the night. In her bedroom, they kissed and groped. She got up the courage to pull out a condom and Nate stared up at her in a way no one had before. The wonderful moment was ruined by her brothers – who busted the door open when they knocked and heard no response. Ben said something about getting the fuck of his sister, and Jim giggled profusely. She can only imagine that they had been very, very high. The best thing was that her next sexual experiences could only climax – ha, ha – from there.

When that documentary premieres on PBS, she settles in with popcorn, her husband Paul, and their cat. She howls wildly at her brother’s ridiculous faces and obvious infatuation. The only thing making his painful crush easy to bear was the fact that Pam was now her sister-in-law. She called him after the show, and said he was a fucking ass. He laughed and called her a douchebag. This is how they worked.

**James Jordan Halpert  
**  
"I’m looking for a dare to be great situation.”  
Say Anything

Basketball was awesome. He loved playing, loved the fact that his height could finally be an asset rather than a nuisance. Scranton Prep was an awful place, repressive and Jesuit, but the team was great and he could just play. Tune out the noises and the loud disturbances of being a teenager. In his senior year, during practice, Brian O’Donnell slammed into him and Jim fell to the floor with a horrible thump, on top of Sam Perelli. Broken leg. He wanted to die, and not because of the pain. Tate tried to cheer him up by writing one long dirty joke on his cast, but it did no good. He was grumpy until November.

When Ben came out, it was more of a formality. Besides the fact that his brother was a truly obvious gay man, Jim had seen Tony (played by Ben Halpert) make out with Bernardo (played by Mike Rodriguez) behind the football field – so there was that. It did not matter that his brother was gay, but it mattered because Ben waited over two decades to entrust this information to his siblings. He was hurt. Jim did not like secrets.

He was not a goal-oriented person. If he had his way, he would live in New York and hang out at bars – but he had been told on more than one occasion that “hanging out” could not be a career. He did not have dreams. There were a few places he wanted to go (Australia, South Africa, India – apparently to the Southern Hemisphere) and a couple of things he wanted to do (be really good at pool and maybe have a kid), but there were no grand master plans. Having no plan is how you end up at a company for way too many years, talking about watermarks. Another way you end up at a company for way too many years: falling in love with the receptionist. Eventually, finally, unbelievably, they stopped running in circles. Pam moved in. He bought a very good ring. And let himself realize that he finally had a plan. Thousands of ideas scribbled on napkins were all for naught, because one night she was was drying her hair, and he heard himself ask her to marry him. He produced the box from its hiding spot, and she cried a little, and then asked if they would be breaking the glass at the end of the ceremony. He said sure.

**Oliver Beesly Halpert  
**  
“Sun is bad for you. Everything our parents said was good is bad. Sun, milk, red meat... college.”  
Annie Hall

Reruns, reruns, boring news program, reruns, his parents on TV, reruns. A rainy Saturday afternoon. Oliver was surprised to see his mom and dad on TV, since usually they were in front of him in 3-D. He could not help but watch with a mix of horror and amusement as he viewed his parents. His dad and his old, shaggy haircut. His mom, much younger. When she talked about her fiancée Roy, Oliver yelled for his parents, because there was some kind of sick joke happening and he did not like it. They came in to the living room eventually, one after another. The documentary ended and was followed by a long family talkback about how long ago that was, and how mom was really happy now and had not been then, and how she had not known that his dad was so in love with her. The conversation continued into the evening. Oliver had made a list of questions.

Israel. A birthright trip. He was 19. His cousin Marc thought it was an awesome idea; Oliver was lukewarm about it. He did not have an interest in being Jewish. His last Jewish related experience had been at his bris, and even though he does not remember that day, it leaves a bad taste in his mouth about the whole religion. But he goes, and he falls in love with the scenery. It is a beautiful place, full of history and pain and life. He writes emails home and his dad writes back with questions. His mom tells him to please be safe, for the love of god. He is safe, and he tells her so; unlike other folks in Israel, he is safe on his tour with hoards of other young Americans. He feels different being here, even his skin feels different. He has so much to say, but no vocabulary for it. And so he just observes.

.end.  


**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed - eventually I will write some actual Jim/Pam - it's on my hard drive!


End file.
